If you had a terminal illness, would you try to extend your life just a little bit longer? If so, would you partake in an experimental procedure being performed by an unlicensed scientist? Soma’s protagonist Simon Jarrett, who suffers from an inoperable brain condition, figures he’s got nothing to lose and rolls the dice.

You’ll begin the game in Simon’s apartment, which features a number of items you can interact with, giving some insight into whom Simon is and serves as a brief tutorial of the game. After exiting the building, you’ll take the subway to a surprisingly vacant office building and meet the “doctor” that aims to help you with your condition. After jumping into a strange chair, everything goes dark and the true nightmare begins as Simon awakes on the PATHOS-II station.

Much like Rapture in the Bioshock franchise, the PATHOS-II feels like a character itself, as the station is reminiscent of a space ship and feels like a living being with danger around every corner. The initial moments invoke a serious sense of dread that rarely let up for a good portion of the game as you explore the station, trying to escape and uncover what exactly happened to the crew.

The game is primarily story driven, with a number of puzzles as well as enemies to evade. While not quite a walking simulator, you will not have a means to defend yourself, so you will need to outmaneuver the enemies as you work your way through the game’s world. These enemies are sparsely placed which layers on the terror. The story is great and one of the strongest aspects of the game, up until the plot twist.

I am clearly in the minority, but I feel the game would have been better if the credits rolled after this particular twist, as the remainder of the game feels like a slog; basically, the game changes the narrative from a horror game to a hard sci-fi offering. While this does not ruin the entire experience, I feel Frictional Games excels in horror and building tension, and this left turn makes the second half feel as if this is an entirely different game.

As I have played this game on both PS4 and the recent port to Xbox One, I will say the newest version is by far the weakest in terms of presentation. While you won’t notice much difference in terms of the visuals as they look amazing, the game froze during a number of transitions from one area to another, all of which were seamless in the PS4 version. After the 30-45 seconds it took for the game to catch up, the textures became muddy and terribly ugly compared to the normal details that the game features. This persisted for another 2-5 minutes before everything went back to normal. While these timeframes may not be major in most cases, it’s enough to break the immersion, which is the selling point of the game.

The audio is still top notch and will likely keep most players on their toes, as you will regularly go from periods of silence, with the only sounds coming from your footsteps, to the loud thud of something moving just outside of your field of view. I found this to be more terrifying than the actual enemies that you come across. Much like the creatures found in the Amnesia series, the monsters here are not much to look at when you get up close, which should really be avoided, since death will come quickly.

The Xbox One version of the game features a “Safe Mode” for those who like their horror with boundaries. This does not remove the enemies you will encounter, but simply rules out death. This option is unnecessary in my humble opinion, as in my Normal playthrough on the PS4 I only died a handful of times.

While SOMA works well as a horror game through its first act and is worth any horror fans time, I would recommend the Xbox One version only to those that don’t have a PS4 or PC (which I would rate at a solid 9 out of 10) that can run it in its full glory.

7 out of 10

Pros

• Unique Premise
• Genuine Scares
• Great Narrative for the First Act

Cons

• Xbox One Version is Buggy
• Bland Enemies
• Story Loses Interest in Second Act

SOMA was developed and published by Frictional Games. It was released on PC and PS4 on September 22nd, 2015, and XB1 on December 1st, 2017, for $29.99. The game was provided to us for review on  XB1. For more on SOMA, visit its official site.

 

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